On Boredom…

So Scandal At School makes a perfect case against picking up books by unknown authors at old book stores! Once again, my weakness for books that look (and smell!) old, has been my undoing. Perhaps it was just my misfortune that I picked up the runt of the lot (G. D. H. & M. Cole did produce quite a number between them)! Anyway, I found Scandal At School to be rather non-scandalous frankly. Perhaps this tale of fraud, murder, children with blackmailing tendencies, teachers with self-esteem issues and a highly ineffectual detective may have raised eyebrows in 1935, but by today’s standards – this was tame fare!

At one point, one of the characters says to the protagonist – “You aren’t really a sleuth, and you know it. You’re only a born sniffer; you never want to catch anyone.” Which describes this book in a nutshell! The reader is led up and down meandering pathways crowded with red herrings and eccentric characters. One gets the idea that the detective doesn’t really want to find a murderer, in so much as meet interesting (read bizarre) people! Not the most fast-paced of murder mysteries, with the character development being its only saving grace. The story reads more like a montage of life, society, attitudes and conversations in 1930s Britain. (Which I would enjoy on any other day, just not under the caption of “murder mystery”!)

Now, I love mysteries. I grew up on a staple diet of Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner, Georgette Heyer, Alistair MacLean and Mary Higgins Clark. I also thoroughly enjoy period mysteries – Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series is a current favourite. And, I’ve also stumbled across authors I haven’t read before and enjoyed their work – Patricia Wentworth is a case in point.

Unfortunately, Scandal At School was boring. After meandering for about three-quarters of the book, the pace finally picked up and the mystery was solved in the space of ten pages! And even then, the solving wasn’t done by our friend, the inept detective!

If I ever find any other books by this author, I might read it just in the hope that this book was the one that fell off the wagon! Otherwise, definitely not a keeper!